Club's owners plan to arrange ballot of season-tickets holders in
controversial name change

The Football Association is planning to block Hull City’s controversial proposal to change their name to Hull Tigers.

A final decision will not be taken by the FA Council until April 9, but it is understood that the FA’s Membership committee will recommend the change is rejected.

Hull’s owners will attempt to salvage their campaign to adopt ‘Tigers’ by arranging a ballot of season-ticket holders and urging supporters to vote in support of it. However, the club’s fans have so far expressed fierce opposition to the name change.

Ehab Allam, the Hull vice-chairman and son of Assem Allam, the club’s outspoken owner, has accused the FA of prejudging the issue and also accused a “minority” of Hull fans of influencing the FA.

Assem Allam has repeatedly threatened to walk away from the club if the name change is rejected, arguing that ‘Tigers’ would make the club more marketable.

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In a last-ditch attempt to swing the FA’s decision next month, every Hull season ticket holder will be asked to vote for or against the name change, even though the owners initially refused to hold a ballot as they reacted angrily to opposition from protest group City Till We Die.

“It’s been an uphill battle from the very beginning,” Ehab Allam said in an interview with BBC Radio Humberside.

“Not just with the fans but, although we believe it’s a minority of the fans, obviously they have the ear of the FA. I’ve known that from the very beginning, because they actually changed the policy to suit our application. Because they’ve changed their policy they obviously want to say no.

“They obviously formed an opinion to then decide to change their policy and that opinion must be a no so it’s up to us to try and change their minds.

"If their default position is to say no then, obviously, we need to canvas the fans and I would imagine in the next few days we would be announcing a ballot of the fans of the season pass-holders only. In the next week I would expect the ballots to go out and it will be a straight forward question [about whether they agree with the name change].”

A spokesman for City Till We Die said: “We were a little bit surprised by the offer of a ballot as we had asked for one in November and we were ignored.

"All of the polls that have taken place, either in the Hull Daily Mail or the official supporters club, show the majority of fans do not want the name change.

"We refute it’s just a vocal minority against it and we believe the ballot will show that. If they are trying to prove the fans are behind the idea to sway the FA decision, I don’t think it will work.

“Ehab Allam has implied there has been some collusion between us and the FA which couldn’t be further from the truth. All we have done is made a presentation to the FA and left them to get on with making a decision.

“We are still waiting for them to make a formal announcement. If they have rejected the idea we would obviously be very pleased, but we have had no confirmation and have to wait until April 9.

“We have never said that we want the Allam family to go, we are very grateful for what they have done, but we disagree with this idea.

"Their threats have changed almost every week, from walking away to selling the club, but I don’t think it’s that straightforward. We have never been shown a concrete business plan that illustrates why they think the name change will bring in so much more money.”

The row has soured an otherwise excellent season for Hull and their manager Steve Bruce, who has not only kept Hull away from the bottom three but also guided the club into a FA Cup semi-final for the first time in 84 years.

The Assem family, who have invested more than £50 million since saving the club from bankruptcy in November 2010, have warned that they will be gone in “24 hours” if they cannot change the name, although it is unlikely that they would be able to find a buyer easily.

Speaking in the Hull Daily Mail in November last year, Assem Allam insisted that there would not be a ballot, but his son claimed that the only reason they did not want to hold one was because they knew the FA would not make a judgment until April.

“It’s just a matter of timing, obviously,” he said. “Because the FA didn’t set the date until April, there was no point us going to a ballot in December, it just didn’t make any sense. So that’s always been the intention but, you know, the timing’s right now.”